R writes:

My mom and I made a cake the other day and had a lot of trouble with the bow. We tried setting it up on a round thing til it dried, but that didn’t turn out so great. They kind of cracked. Do you have any good suggestions? How do you usually handle the bows?
I really like the teddy bear cake that you did by the way. Its adorable. Hope this finds you well.

Hi R!
I’m not exactly sure why your bow cracked without specific knowledge of what kind of crack, how long you let it dry, the kind of “round thing” you put it on, etc. But I can show you how to make a pretty simple fondant bow. I apologize for the green color - I simply used some of the extra fondant I had left over from the Corduroy cake for this. First, roll out the fondant to a thickness of about 1/4″. Then use a pizza cutter to cut the fondant into strips. In the below example I cut four strips of equal size and one of the same width, but slightly shorter length. Two of the strips are used for the bow’s loops. The other two are used as the tails of the bow. If you were decorating a cake like a wrapped present, like the Tiffany’s cake I did, you don’t need the tails - you can place the bow on the longer strip of ribbon to make it look like the whole package was tied. For the loops of the bows, I used rolled up paper towel to hold their shape and let them dry for about an hour or so before placing them on the cake. They will not be rock hard at that point, but usually dry enough to have started to hold their shape. I usually put them on the cake at this point and let them finish their drying there with the paper towel still in place. That way there isn’t much handling of the bows when they are completely dry and more brittle. After they have completed their drying on the cake, I take out the paper towels and I have a finished bow!